Rock Bottom

Summary: You are cordially invited to ride-along with a dead man. Fasten your seatbelt. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

A Thriller

The
unmarked police vehicle sped away from the bloody crime scene into the night,
AC/DC’s Highway to Hell blaring from the
radio perpetually tuned to Classic Rock 105.9. The hurtling black Crown Vic
equipped with the Police Interceptor Package and permeated with the acrid
aromas of blood and sweat turned off Chesapeake Street, SE onto Southern Avenue
on two wheels and burned rubber when the other two tires finally returned to
the asphalt. His dirty blonde hair
matted to his feverish head by cold perspiration, the right sides of his gray polyester
sport coat, button-down powder blue shirt, body armor, underwear and blue jeans
wet, warm and sticky and stained a deep burgundy, the undercover narcotics
officer flew like a bat out of hell. His mouth and throat filled with the
metal-like taste of his own blood, his mind on the satchel stuffed with cash
and crack rocks resting on the front passenger seat, Detective Moe Bundy made
his getaway.

One hand gripping the steering wheel
and the other pressed hard against the oozing bullet wound in the right side of
his neck, his bloodshot eyes stinging from the saline-rich sweat flowing from
his furrowed forehead and constantly blinking, Moe fought not only to maintain
control of the careening car, but to simply remain conscious. Blood-drenched
and woozy, he struggled to focus. Like a trucker who had been on the road for
far too long or a drunk driver, he fought second by second to keep his eyes
open and his vehicle on the roadway. Regardless,
he was dying for just one hit of one of those big, fat rocks beckoning to him
from the satchel on the seat next to him; ached for it deep in the pit of his
belly.

Moe had polished off a pint of
Smirnoff’s and hit his last rock in his unmarked police cruiser just moments
before he walked into apartment 202 of the building on Condon Terrace and opened fire on “The Devil” and his crew. His
high had worn off long ago, 5 minutes or more. An eternity. And the numbness
brought on by shock coupled with the charge of the crack cocaine seemed to be
wearing off. Along with the throbbing in his neck he felt with each heartbeat, twinges
of pain were now encroaching. But now definitely wasn’t the time to take a hit and
chase away the pain. Damn it! He had to keep his head, plot his next move, he
had to concentrate!

Severely handicapped by massive blood
loss, he made a Herculean effort moment to moment to focus. His eyes watering,
constantly blinking, and swiftly closing to slits and then opening wide, he struggled
to decide, Right or left onto Wheeler Road?Right. At the last second, he slammed
on the brakes and yanked the steering wheel hard over, tires screeching as he
whipped right onto Wheeler Road, out of the District and into Southern Maryland.
He stood on the accelerator pedal, still fleeing when no one was chasing him,
leaving a trail of smoke and burned rubber as he fishtailed up the road,
bobbing and weaving through traffic. He had to put distance between him and the
bloodbath he’d left behind on Condon Terrace, but more importantly, he needed
immediate medical attention, though he had no idea where to get it off the
books. His squeeze Sizzle would know. All he had to do was get to her.

The job Sizzle laid out for him was
supposed to have been a cakewalk, but the robbery of drug dealer Marcus “The
Devil” Delaney had gone horribly awry. Typical. This fiasco was another fine
mess his self-serving side piece had gotten him into; yet another precarious
predicament. But, as always, Moe chalked it up to bad luck, not bad planning.

Moe Bundy had been kickin’ it with Sizzle
for about a year, ever since he’d made her acquaintance at the Ragin’ Cajun Supper Club up on Mount
Olivet Road, an eternally dark and smoky Ptomaine Domain specializing in so-so pseudo
Cajun cuisine and outstanding authentic pole dancing.

The night he met her, Moe was sitting at a table in the
back of the club when he raised his bottle of Budweiser to his lips, but
stopped in mid-drink when he caught sight of the luscious and leggy scantily clad
beauty strutting out onto center stage on three-inch stiletto pumps. Curvaceous
and caramel colored; she stood five feet, six inches tall, and weighed about
120 pounds. Her hair was long, lush and dark, her breasts ample and firm, her
stomach flat, and her legs shapely and strong. He couldn’t put his finger on
her race. Brazilian? Pacific Islander? East Asian? Middle Eastern? (Much later
in their affiliation, she had told him that her father was a Seminole Indian
and her mother was Sri Lankan. Once he researched Sri Lanka on the Internet to
learn where the hell it was, her extraordinary beauty made sense to him then.)

The young honey’s age was
questionable. Her fake ID said she was 21, and she looked it, but that’s how
old one legally had to be to strip. But the truth was she could have been anywhere
between 15 and 22. Moe didn’t let that bother him though: he wanted her. And
what Moe wanted, Moe got. He had no qualms about being a bad man and cheating
on his wife to get what he wanted, so he didn’t let the possibility that Sizzle
was underage hold him back. It didn’t really matter; bad is bad…and he’d
already done worse. And if being bad was all it took to get next to the fresh
and tender stripper, he didn’t want to be good.

“Gentlemen,” said a baritone
announcer with a mic inside of a booth, “Please put your hands together and
give a warm welcome to our newest dancer, the red hot and smokin’… Sizzle! Yes!
If she was a car, she’d be a showroom fresh little red Corvette!”

Holding but not drinking from his
bottle of beer, Moe left his Marlboro smoldering in the ashtray, mesmerized as Sizzle,
nimble and lithe, alternately had sex with the pole center stage, then moved
closer to the oglers hanging close to the periphery of the stage, her garter
filling with lengthwise folded one dollar bills, gyrating and then posing her
way all the way through the pulsating rhythms of Nasty Girl, a song written by Prince for his protégé girl group
Vanity 6.

Sizzle didn’t reveal to Moe that her
real name was Rachel Young until about six months into their relationship,
which began the night they’d met. Their first, and many subsequent dates, cost
him $200 and the price of a dime bag of weed, a bottle of Moët champagne and a
room at a cheap motel on New York Avenue, NE. But in a month or so when their
relationship blossomed, he rented her an apartment on the 4100 block of Georgia
Avenue, NW, across the street from the Foxy
Playground where she also danced whenever she needed some more quick and easy
cash. After that he no longer had to put cash on the barrelhead…at least not
every time he stopped by. It came out
cheaper for him in the short run…but not in the long run when he started
dabbling in cocaine with her and graduated to crack a month later.

Moe had thought snorting cocaine and
having marathon sex with Sizzle was the pinnacle, but powder paled by
comparison to rock. Inhaling the pungent smoke of the far more potent crack
provided an immediate, euphoric rush. He’d let Sizzle hit the glass pipe first.
When she gave him the nod, he’d hit the pipe and then she’d mount him as he lay
on his back holding the intoxicating vapor deep in his lungs for as long as he
could, exhaling the cool smoke slowly as she rode him like a Preakness jockey. And
on and on into the night, stopping briefly now and again as needed to reload rocks
into their ubiquitous singed glass pipe and inhaling the acrid vapors to
refresh their insatiable lust. It was heaven. The crack all by itself was
almost better than sex, but Sizzle had skills like no other woman he’d ever
encountered, especially his timid spouse Martha, with whom he had grown up with
in Crofton, Maryland and who had been his Arundel High School sweetheart.
Sizzle was magnificent. The one-two punch of Sizzle and smoke had Moe twisted.

* * *

Moe swerved to avoid a white Chevy
Tahoe that seemed to come out of nowhere and stood on the horn. He swore under
his breath. Classic Rock 105.9 broadcast the Eagle’s Life in the Fast Lane as, fighting to keep his watery and blinking eyes
open; Moe Bundy sped away up Wheeler Road.

* * *

Even when Moe eventually became
strapped for cash to pay the mortgage on his home in the suburbs, the rent for
his lust nest on Georgia Avenue, the utility bills at both places, his car notes,
food, formula and diapers for baby Moe, and his pudgy, white bread wife’s
Pilates classes, he always found a way to cover it all plus the price of
heaven…until the overtime money he was making dried up. Without it, he was
close to hitting rock bottom and being on skid row. Regardless, he kept on a
good face at work and at home, for the most part, and continued to make solid
drug busts and excuse his long absences from home by claiming to his wife that he
was working overtime to fight the good fight in the War on Drugs. He was a
frontline soldier and all hands were needed on deck. And it worked. Even when he hit a rough patch and his police
powers were revoked and he was placed on non-contact status and working day
work at the Property Division, his wife Martha had been none the wiser.

Moe’s suspension came as the result
of a stupid move he’d made after bingeing on Crack and working for three days
straight. His mind muddled, he had left behind his notebook at a Crack house
where he’d served arrest and search warrants. When he realized his mistake an
hour later, he returned but could not find it. Later that night, streetwalker
Zenaida Austin, his confidential informant for the raid, was found tortured and
murdered in a cheap motel on New York Avenue, his notebook left at the gory scene.
Distraught and remorseful, Moe confessed his mistake to Detective Dave Crawford.

It wasn’t Dave who ratted him out. On the contrary, Superintendent of Detectives
Ray McCann was advised by Commander of Homicide Branch Jed Cullinane that Moe’s
notebook was found at the motel room murder scene. McCann had then informed Moe’s
boss, Lt. “Blackjack Zack” Braxton. Blackjack Zack in turn revoked Moe’s police
powers and placed him on limited duty, non-contact status while the Internal
Affairs Division (IAD) investigated the matter. As Blackjack Zack so eloquently
put it, “Whether you blundered and accidentally left your notebook at the crack
house, left it there intentionally to surreptitiously pass on the identity of
your CI for the raid to a third party, or chopped Zenaida Austin to pieces
personally, it is evident that you are responsible for that young woman’s
death. An Internal Affairs investigation
of the matter is warranted to determine if your act was one of criminal intent
or merely gross negligence. And if, God forbid, the press gets wind of this and
this mess gets out, the fact that we investigated this matter will not only help
the department defend itself if the victim’s survivors file a lawsuit against
the department, but against an allegation that the department doesn’t protect
witnesses and informants. Hell, it’s hard enough to get people to come forward
for fear of their lives and your actions have made it that much harder.”

Moe weathered the storm. IAD
detectives determined that he had been exhausted from working overtime fighting
the War on Drugs in the weeks prior to the unfortunate incident and had merely
made a mistake when he left his notebook at the crack house. He was reinstated
to full duty status, with only a reprimand placed in his personnel file, which
would be removed after one year, provided he kept his nose clean during that
time period.

The beauty of being placed on
limited duty though was his non-contact assignment in the Property Division: he
stole dozens of seized handguns slated for destruction and sold or traded them
on the street for crack. The downside was that months after he worked there,
ballistics in nonfatal shootings and murders all over the city were being
traced back to guns that had supposedly been melted down at a smelting plant in
Baltimore, Maryland and turned into manhole covers. IAD was all over it,
looking at everyone who worked there prior to the scheduled destruction date of
the firearms in question, and the Chief of Police had ordered new security
measures be implemented, including the installation of additional video cameras
throughout the Property Division.

Yeah, it was a real hustle coming up
with all his other expenses and the price of heaven. But that was cool. All
that really mattered to him was a handful of crack rocks and Sizzle and a few
hours to enjoy them. He was flying high and never feared hitting rock bottom.

His cash flow problems generated by
his and Sizzle’s drug addiction dictated a series of desperate acts to make
ends meet that, if the good times were to continue to roll, were inevitable. Although
he had thought up a few on his own, Sizzle had been the mastermind of most of their
moves, including the debacle on Condon Terrace. It was she who suggested that
he short the cash and product he seized during drug busts, pocket the
difference, and place into evidence less than half of what was actually
confiscated. So far, not one of the defendants had complained and even if one
did, it would be the word of a scum sucking drug dealer against the word of a
decorated and celebrated narcotics officer. In fact, he had the best arrest record in the
Narcotics and Special Investigations Division.

The thought of his sterling
reputation among his peers in law enforcement caused Moe to involuntarily stick
out his chest with pride for an instant, but he was immediately jolted back to
the stark reality of his present dire situation, bleeding profusely from the
neck and fleeing from a multiple-murder scene in an unmarked police car.

Classic Rock 105.9 broadcast ZZ Top’s
Me So Stupid as he whipped the rumbling
Crown Vic left off of Wheeler Road onto St. Barnabas Road and then decided it
was best that he slow his roll so he wouldn’t draw attention to himself. He
eased up off the gas and cruised slightly above the posted speed limit. No
worries. At this speed, he should rendezvous with Sizzle on the parking lot of
the Arbor View Apartment complex on Brinkley Road in Temple Hills, Maryland in about
ten minutes or so, traffic permitting. She’d know what to do…

* * *

Sizzle had known what to do when drug
runner Blinky Felder bragged to her about his standing in notorious drug dealer
Marcus “The Devil” Delaney’s organization and blabbed the man’s entire
operation. “The Devil” had a hell of a
set up.

Delaney had a fleet of candy trucks
operating all over D.C., but they dispensed more than just goodies for the
kids, the drivers also sold crack. He also had a fleet of “pizza delivery”
vehicles operating all over the city, complete with fake roof signs declaring,
“Mama Mia’s Pizza.” The “pizza deliverymen” carried empty insulated pizza cases
to customers’ homes and delivered significant orders of crack cocaine.

In different neighborhoods all over
town, he had apartments where he transacted business personally, picking up
cash and dropping off product. Sizzle learned the time and the place for
tonight’s business on Condon Terrace, as well as how many people would likely
be there. Yeah, that dummy told Sizzle everything and then Sizzle told Moe.

Moron.

Yeah, Sizzle had given him the
lowdown on The Devil’s operation and his rep didn’t scare Moe one bit.

Marcus Delaney had gotten his well-deserved
street name the instant he torched Francisco “Big Boy” Longus a couple of years
back. Everybody knew the story, but Delaney had gotten away with the gruesome
murder because witnesses were too terrified to finger him.

Big Boy had been ducking Delaney for
some time because Delaney had discovered that Big Boy had been dealing on
Delaney’s turf. Big Boy was as nervous as a hooker in church. No, scared
shitless was more accurate. He kept
moving around, never spending more than a few hours at any one place. If he
kept moving, he was sure, Delaney wouldn’t find him. He also changed cars frequently. The night Big Boy got burned; he was going to
borrow his boy Pee Wee’s car, a rusted, blue 1970 Chevy Nova.

After looking the area over
carefully for a while, Big Boy exited Pee Wee’s place located in the Barry Farm
public housing project and walked briskly to the Nova, key in hand. He unlocked the door, but before he could
climb into the car and squeeze behind the steering wheel, someone behind him
yelled, “Hey, muthafucka!”

Big Boy spun around and stood face
to face with Marcus Delaney, who held a…mayonnaise jar…filled with liquid. A burning rag, which was soaked with the
liquid, hung from a hole cut into the lid of the jar. Big Boy’s eyes widened in terror when he
realized what Delaney was holding.

Delaney whispered, “Just so you
know, your boy Pee Wee dimed you out for an eight ball of crack. Welcome to
hell!”

With all of his might, Delaney hurled
the incendiary device at Big Boy’s forehead, making sure that the glass would
shatter and cover the fat boy’s nappy head and bovine shoulders.

The Mega Molotov Cocktail was Delaney’s
Special Blend of gasoline, soap chips, and Joy dishwashing liquid. It was perfection. Delaney swore by it. “Accept no substitutes,” he always said.

The fat boy instantly burst into
flames. Big Boy, a huge fireball lighting the night, wailed like a banshee as
he ran blindly, bouncing off of parked cars and utility poles, and falling and
getting up and running and falling and getting up and running until he
disappeared out of sight around a corner and all that remained were his
diminishing screams.

All the while, Delaney laughed raucously.

Those who observed the horror
exclaimed: “Daaamn!” “Oh, shit!” “He set that mu-fu on fire!” “He’s the
devil!”

Delaney didn’t give a damn who
witnessed it because he knew not one of them would have the nerve to tell
Five-O what they had seen. Whether Big Boy Longus lived or died, it didn’t
matter to Delaney; he had made his meaning plain:

DON’T CROSS MARCUS DELANEY!

Moe was annoyed by a slow moving
silver colored Lincoln Continental in front of him and stood on the horn. He took
advantage of the Crown Vic P71’s 4.6 L Modular V8 and whipped around the luxury
car, passed it on the left, and then abruptly whipped back into the right lane
in front of the Lincoln, cutting it off and forcing its operator to brake to
avoid a collision.

The sights and sounds of the swaying
Lincoln’s screeching brakes and smoking tires behind him, Classic Rock 105.9 still
broadcasting ZZ Top’s Me So Stupid as
his bloodshot eyes watered, constantly blinked, and swiftly closed to slits and
then opened wide, Moe Bundy sped away down St. Barnabas Road.

* * *

Yeah, that stupid-ass Blinky’s info
had been dead on and Moe had fearlessly gone up against The Devil and his
minions. The only trouble Moe encountered couldn’t have been foreseen; it had
just been bad luck. Moe had made a big mistake when he believed that all five
of the men he’d shot were dead. One wasn’t. While Moe frantically removed rubber-banded
stacks of filthy and wrinkled $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 bills from one
gym bag and stuffed them into another gym bag containing a large quantity of
packaged crack, The Devil shot him in the neck while he wasn’t looking. Moe instantly
drew his service handgun and shot the dirty bastard in the forehead. He then quickly
moved to him and kicked the shiny gat from Delaney’s dead hand.

Funny thing was Moe thought he
recognized The Devil’s gun. Could it be? Yes. That nickel-plated Colt .45 semiautomatic
handgun with the cracked ornate Ivory grip was unmistakable; it was one of the
guns he had stolen from the Property Division and sold on the street for Crack
a few months back. Son of a bitch. Imagine that. Sizzle would get a kick out of
that one! Moe had laughed aloud right there in the room full of bloody corpses.

Like he always said, “Never
underestimate the power of bad luck.”

* * *

Classic Rock 105.9 broadcast Jimi
Hendrix’s Purple Haze as Moe whipped
the growling Crown Vic off of St. Barnabas Road right onto Hagan Road, bobbing
and weaving through the traffic. It wouldn’t be long now; he’d be reunited with
Sizzle soon and everything would be alright.

His squeeze Sizzle would get him medical
attention, he’d clean up the police cruiser, and they could play with their
money naked on the king size bed in the lust nest and smoke crack and screw to
their hearts’ content and then he could take Moe Junior and the missus on a
trip to Disney World next week, like he’d promised…

* * *

Jimi still belting and strumming Purple Haze, his neck throbbing beneath
his hand, Detective Moe Bundy, blood-drenched, woozy, and cold like in the dead
of winter even though it was summertime, turned off Hagan Road right onto Temple
Hill Road. He traveled a short distance and then turned right onto Fisher Road, and navigated the winding road a while and then made a left onto Brinkley
Road. Finally, he turned left into the Arbor View Apartments complex. He drove
to the back of the parking lot to a poorly lit area, pulled next to a dumpster,
and put the cruiser in park. His left hand fell from the steering wheel to his
wet lap. Shivering, Moe rested his head against the headrest, closed his bloodshot
eyes, and sighed. He’d made it.

Pale as Dracula, his teeth clicking
like castanets, his eyes watering, constantly blinking, and swiftly closing to
slits and then opening wide, Moe spotted Sizzle dressed in a black mini skirt
and red tube top walking toward the police cruiser and he smiled a weak smile,
teeth stained with thick, frothy blood. Everything would be alright now.

As soon as Sizzle reached the police
cruiser, she snatched opened the driver’s door and eyeballed him
unsympathetically.

Eyes half-closed and wandering, Moe
gurgled, “Siz-zle, hel-help…”

As
though she were far away, Moe heard her say, “Put away your gun, Blinky. The
Devil and his boys saved us the trouble. Grab the bag off the front seat and
let’s get out of here!”

His squeeze Sizzle slammed the door
in his face and Blinky Felder, armed with a semiautomatic handgun and wearing a
Redskins jersey and half-wearing baggy stonewashed jeans hanging far beneath
his skinny ass, quickly opened the passenger door and grabbed the satchel from
the shotgun seat. Moe tried to go for his service handgun in the holster on his
left hip, but his arm would not move. Blinky smirked at him and slammed the
door.

His bloodshot eyes watering and
constantly blinking, his vision blurred by stinging teardrops, Moe watched
helplessly as his precious squeeze, her luscious ass filling out her miniskirt
nicely, her stilettos clicking on the pavement like cat claws; and Blinky,
holding up his sagging jeans with one hand and carrying in the other the bag
containing all of Moe’s hopes and dreams, ran away together back the way the
girl of his nightmares had come. He moaned.

Moe felt like he was falling,
falling…

Classic Rock 105.9 broadcast Three
Dog Night’s Mama Told Me (Not to Come)
as Detective Moe Bundy, blood-drenched and woozy and unable to move, his vision
blurred by stinging tears, watched Sizzle and Blinky run off into the night and
disappear around the corner of one of the apartment complex’s many buildings. The
narcotics officer’s cold white hand stained with streaks of burgundy finally fell
from the bullet wound in the right side of his neck. His bloodshot eyes watered
and constantly blinked, closed to slits, opened wide, and then closed.

The End

Start writing here ...

Write a Review
Did you enjoy my story? Please let me know what you think by leaving a review! Thanks,
Quintin Peterson

Catherine Edward ~ On Hiatus:
I enjoyed reading this story very much. Thanks for sharing it here. It was well written with good descriptions.Rachel travels to the Black Forest Island for an archeological dig and soon finds her team mates missing. When all the puzzle pieces fall into place it was something they weren't prepare...

mray2174:
I did like this story. I would totally recommend it to a friend, but it didn't seem like a book. Your writing style reminded me of a fan fiction writer, always adding in tiny details and making things like "Oh, my name is [name that no one would ever name a child] and here is my life story. Oh, d...

Bad:
The Setting was applicable to the characters, and it was a fantastic story the theological concepts were pretty interesting and the themes were intriguingThe author use the POV which the readers can feel, the characters all had a good back storyIt was a hooking story, and one of the unique book t...

James Lawson:
I enjoyed this so much I immediately bought (and read) the sequel from Amazon.ca - and am eagerly awaiting the third installment.Since this is a review and not a synopsis, I'll share my impressions rather than write out a condensed version of the plot.There were enough plot twists and turns to ke...

Nishant Jain:
I felt as if i am watching a movie,not reading a book. The story was definitely interesting. It was more of action than horror for me. There are a few grammatical and spelling errors I came across and at times I found it difficult to imagine some things which the author is trying to convey, but o...

Jim E. Johnson:
Rarely do I find a mystery that peeks my interest, but Jack Huber's Pat Ruger reminds me of Parker's Spenser or Spillane's Hammer! Strong character with the right connections and plot drivers to keep anyone engaged and never putting it down.The encounters of the characters Ruger engages, continue...

Warren Bull:
I thought this was a fast=paced thriller with elements of several other genres woven seamlessly in. It hooked me early and held my attention throughout. I liked the humor and surprises along the way. I really enjoyed the novel. I am not a big fan of romances or paranormal works,but when those ele...

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